


The Garden

by bluebellsandcocklesshells



Series: 642 Prompts [13]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV), Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Supernatural/Shadowhunters crossover, crack ship, kind of sort of character death (but no one on SPN is ever really dead), technically canon in both worlds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-05
Updated: 2016-05-05
Packaged: 2018-06-06 13:26:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6755887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluebellsandcocklesshells/pseuds/bluebellsandcocklesshells
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt 13 of 642: Where would you choose to be exiled?</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Garden

“Exile is the price,” Raziel’s voice swirled around him like a hot, desert wind.  “You stood up for what you believe.  Acted to protect those you love.  But there is consequence to your choice.”

Alec had a hundred arguments for why the angel’s decree was unfair.  A thousand reasons why Raziel should be groveling on his knees and thanking him.  But he held his tongue because Raziel was right.  He had disobeyed direct orders and violated the code of the Clave.  He deserved punishment—even if it had been the right thing to do.

Alec nodded his head.  “Very well.  So long as Isabelle and Magnus and Jace remain safe.”  He let out a soft sigh.  “And Clary and Simon too, I guess.”

He couldn’t see him, but Alec thought he felt Raziel’s amusement.

“Your actions were not in vain.  You are a true Shadowhunter, my child.  And while you must be exiled, I did not say punished.  You will be sent to the Garden, and there you must stay.”

“Until?”

He received no response.  Alec swallowed, the first inklings of uncertainty and dread tickling the back of his neck.

“The Garden?  Do mean…the Garden of Eden?”

“The very one.”

Alec couldn’t stop the soft laugh that escaped his lips.  “That’s a little ironic, isn’t it?  Being exiled to the place humans were once exiled from?”

“And everyone says I don’t have a sense of humor.”

Alec tilted his head slightly.  He had a feeling that Shadowhunters didn’t really know anything at all about their patron saint.

“You are going now, Alec.”

Alec started.  “W-wait!  I haven’t had a chance to say goodbye!”

He took a step forward and then drew up sharply with a choked breath.  He was no longer in an abandoned warehouse in Brooklyn; he was surrounded by lush flora and a heavy, soothing atmosphere, like someone had spiked a humidifier with aromatherapy.  It made Alec immediately uncomfortable.

“R-Raziel…” Alec said, his voice dangerously close to a whimper.

“There is no pain here, Alec.  No danger, no fear.”

“No…body…” Alec whispered, forcing back a sob and turning on his heel to look at the quiet and still-– _so still-_ –paradise surrounding him.

“There are…a few others here.  Others, like you, who had to be exiled from their homes but didn’t deserve punishment.  You may see their shadows at times, but you will never see them.  There is…one who is here by choice.  You may see him, but he’s quite glum and makes for poor company.  Even for an angel.”

“There are other angels?”

Somehow, Alec knew that Raziel was gone.  Probably to the war back home.  Or hell, who knows?   Maybe he skipped back off to wherever the hell he’d been in the thousand years since creating the Nephilim.  He turned around slowly again, looking at Eden.

There was a lot of grass—bright, verdant green and trimmed short to all be the same length.  It stretched out like a fragrant carpet in every direction but one, which was filled by a slow moving, deep river.  Weeping willows and weeping cherry trees created yellowy-green and pink pathways over the grass and were lined with flowers of all shapes, sizes, and colors.  Everything was very neat and orderly.  He wondered if different people saw different gardens.  He liked the precise, mazelike quality of this garden, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t be pleasant for other people.  Perhaps that was why he would only see shadows of other people—because they were all compartmentalized in their own corner of Eden.

He turned around again, slower this time, scanning the ground for shadows.  He saw none.  He looked up to see where the sun was situated, perhaps it was noon and there couldn’t be shadows.  He searched the clear blue sky for several minutes.  There was no sun, only light.

Alec heard a flap of wings behind him and turned quickly, instinctively going for his bow and quiver.  He found that he had an arrow nocked before he even realized that he still had his weapons.  He wondered why Raziel would let him keep them?  Did he suspect that he would need them?  He’d said there would be no danger.  But could he be trusted?

Alec’s eyes scanned the bright, empty garden around him.  He saw nothing and heard no more noises.  He lowered his arrow, and decided to look around.

He soon discovered that time had no meaning in the Garden.  There were no days or nights.  He never got hungry or thirsty or tired or sleepy.  He both felt like he’d just arrived and had been in the Garden for an eternity all at once.  He wasn’t even sure time was passing at all.  Perhaps he was caught in a moment—preserved under a glass dome and sitting on a shelf somewhere in Raziel’s basement office.

The only sign he got that time might still exist was that sometimes he did see shadows, and he could tell when it had been a while since he had seen one.  He also heard fluttering wings on occasion.  They were harsh, desperate struggling sounds, like a bird trying to fly but unable to.  The sound made Alec inexplicably sad.  Raziel had promised him there would be no pain; but he could feel the pain in the sound those wings made.  Whoever they belonged to was in the deepest most unbearable pain.  And Alec couldn’t help but share in it.

***

Castiel had taken to wandering the Garden since the Winchesters had died.  Dean had kept hunting too long.  Much past the capabilities of his body.  He had died on a simple salt and burn in his early fifties.  Sam had lived just past ninety.  He hadn’t seemed bitter or bothered by Castiel haunting him all his life.  He’d asked Castiel to watch over his grandchildren—he must have known Cas would need a purpose when Sam was gone.

Castiel had done it because he’d loved Sam.  And he loved his children and grandchildren.  And he watched over generation after generation until the Winchester name was absorbed by other surnames.  They became too numerous to watch them all—and too much effort without wings.  Apparently being a Winchester meant being a troublesome pain in the ass.  But they were all good kids.  Except that one who turned to witchcraft to win frog races—but that was hardly the worst thing a Winchester had ever done.

He stayed on Earth and watched over the people he considered to be his family because he didn’t want to be around his “real” family.  The Winchesters had become his family and that was where he belonged, even after they had died.  He stayed on Earth because Sam and Dean weren’t in heaven.  They weren’t in hell or purgatory either.  His father had done something with them.  And he had disappeared again.  Castiel hadn’t understood his father’s parting words to him until after Dean’s death.  He’d gone to heaven to find him and been told he wasn’t there.  And then he had heard his father’s words undulating like waves across his consciousness.

_“You are my greatest creation, Castiel—because I had very little to do with what you became.  You did that all on your own.  And I’m proud of you.  But you need to believe in yourself.  You need to know that your existence is not predicated on a mission or in service of another.  I need you to learn to love yourself for who you are.”_

Castiel had been enraged.  Who was his father to tell him what he needed to learn?  Who was his father to say that living–-existing-–for one man wasn’t a good enough reason?

So he’d gone to Sam.  And stayed with him.  Loved him rebelliously, ferociously—and Sam had been there for him.  Accepted his pain and grief, but not his loneliness.  He never let Castiel feel alone.  Even though he was married with children, Castiel was never sent away.  Which was why he stayed for so many generations after Sam’s passing—because he had made a promise.

But eventually they didn’t need him anymore, a broken, crippled angel.  So he went looking for his family.  He traveled to far away galaxies, other universes, different dimensions.  He searched for eons, and still he was alone.  He took to wandering the Garden, wondering if the Winchesters had been able to carve out their own Shadow Garden.  He realized if he did see them, he would never know it.  He couldn’t touch the shadows or hear them.  Eden was Exile—from everything.

Which was why it was surprising when at some point in the wibbly-wobbly ball of time his father had created, he didn’t see a shadow.  He saw a person.  He wasn’t from Sam’s and Dean’s version of reality—he could sense that immediately—but he was from a place that the angels had touched.  He could smell it actually.  Raziel.  This human was from one of the realities where Raziel and his Nephilim hadn’t been annihilated.  Interesting.

He shifted closer and the human spun quickly, drawing an arrow back in a bow.  So he had heard him.  None of the shadows had ever reacted like they could hear him.  Castiel let his eyes wander over the human—the first one he had seen in quite some time.

He was tall, like the Winchesters, but much skinnier.  His eyes were a burst of colors that made for an interesting interpretation of hazel.  They reminded him of Sam’s eyes.  His distrustful stare—mixed with a slight pout—reminded him of Dean.  Castiel smiled.  And followed the human.

***

Not that he had anything to judge the passage of time by, but it was quite a while before Alec worked up the nerve to strip and enter the river.  He didn’t need to bathe, of course.  He didn’t get dirty and he didn’t smell.  But sometimes it seemed like the river called to him.  Possibly because it was the only thing other than himself that made sound.  He had taken to talking to himself just to hear a voice, and he wondered if the power of the Garden was the only thing keeping him sane in his solitude.

Alec submerged himself and felt— _something_ —infuse his whole body.  It made him feel whole again for the first time since his exile had begun.  He rose slowly to the surface, enjoying the sound the water made as it ran off his hair and shoulders.  He heard that sad, struggling flutter again.

“Who are you?” Alec asked.  “Are you even here?”  He placed his palms flat on the surface of the water and patted it a couple of times, enjoying the sensation.  “If you’re here and I’m here, we should be here together.”

Alec turned slightly, looked up at the bank of the river, and let out an embarrassing squeak.  He stumbled back in the water and went under.  He stayed there for a moment, trying to process if what he had seen had been real, or if he really was going crazy and his brain had invented the weirdo in the trench coat.

Alec surfaced slowly, alligator like, first only revealing his eyes so that he could verify the person he had seen was in fact still there.  He stayed that way for a while—he didn’t need to breathe as it turned out which was the most disconcerting evidence he’d had yet that he was probably dead.

The man on the bank stood unmoving, watching him in the water.  He was kind of beautiful, in a painfully broken kind of way.  Dark hair, bright blue eyes, lips that drew attention.  He wore an ill-fitting suit and a tan trench coat.  He was watching Alec with slightly narrowed eyes.  Alec didn’t think it was out of suspicion or dislike, just confusion.  Eventually, Alec stood up completely, the water stopping just below his chest.  The man didn’t react.

“H-hello,” Alec said, his voice cracking a bit.  And that was embarrassing.  He was a Shadowhunter; he needed to pull himself together.

“Hello,” the man replied.

“Um…”  Alec intended to ask him if he was the one with the broken-sounding wings, but then decided that might be a little rude even for two people stuck in perpetuity.  “I’m Alexander Lightwood.  People call me Alec.”

“My name is Castiel.  People…”  The man inhaled.  “People call me Cas.”

Alec nodded.  “Castiel.  You’re an angel?  Or just named after one?”

The man—angel?—thought about his answer for a long moment.

“I was created as an angel.  It’s hard to say what I am now.”

“Were you exiled here?”

“In a way.  It’s self-imposed.”

“Oh.”

“You?”

“Raziel exiled me here.”

Cas snorted.  “He does like his pets.”

Alec bristled.  “I’m here because I broke the rules.  He could have punished me.”

“This isn’t punishment?”

“It…” Alec looked down and remembered he was naked in a river.  “It could be worse.”

“Perhaps.  But rules…our father doesn’t really care about rules.  No matter what universe they’re in.”

“Your father?”

“God.”

“Hn.”  Oddly, Alec had never given much thought to God.  He supposed if angels were real, then God must be.  He tilted his head and considered Castiel.  “You don’t look like an angel.”

“This is a vessel,” Castiel explained.  “One I became attached to.  One that…meant something to some people.  I also suspect Raziel might have embellished his appearance.  He does have a flare for the dramatic.  Not unlike Gabriel and Baltha—”

The angel cut off, suddenly looking distraught.  Alec took a couple of steps toward him.

“Are—are you okay?”

Castiel shook his head.  “I certainly deserve exile.  More than you.  I’ve…done terrible things.”

“Everyone has.”

“I murdered my brothers and sisters.  I hurt people I loved.  I betrayed the one person who meant more to me than any other existence my father ever created.”

Alec nodded in empathy.  “Being in love sucks,” he said softly, trying not to remember the look on Magnus’ face when he’d left him behind to save them all.  It hadn’t been a look of pride or loving resignation.  He’d been shocked and hurt.  He’d looked betrayed.

“In love…” the angel murmured.  “A human expression of love.”

“You never felt it?”

Castiel didn’t respond right away.  He shrugged his coat off.  “May I join you in the river?”

Alec raised his eyebrows.  “Uh-um, y-yeah.  Sure.”

The angel began to disrobe and Alec looked up at the bright blue sky.  Then he peeked down.  He meant to just glance, but damn if that “vessel” wasn’t damn hot.  He lowered his eyes, blushing as the celestial being walked unhurriedly, but with purpose into the water.  It was wrong to think of an angel in such base terms, right?  Although he had to wonder what kind of relationship a human would have with an angel to mean “more than any other existence ever created.”

Castiel stopped when he was waist deep, directly in front of Alec.  He met his eyes and Alec felt his lips part involuntarily.  He could see Castiel’s inhuman existence burning behind his human eyes.  Alec suspected he might be bigger and even more beautiful than Raziel if he allowed his true self to be seen.

“I’ve wandered through these Gardens for a very long time,” Castiel said.

Alec wanted to ask him what that meant exactly and if he knew how long Alec had been there, but he didn’t want to disturb the angel.  He looked lost—but like he had just found hope.

“There are others, but they are shadows.  And the river is hidden from me.”

Alec looked down at the water he was standing in.  He looked up and pointed to it.  “This one?”

Castiel nodded.  “The River Jordan.”

Alec’s eyebrows went up again.  “We’re on Earth?”

Cas shook his head.  “No, this river’s name is actually Qaa.  It appears in different parts of Creation—across universes and dimensions—where God wills it to.  It is given names by the creatures who live in those universes.  Humans almost invariably call it Nahar ha-Yarden.  Jordan in English.”

“O-okay.  Why was it hidden from you?”

“If I knew that I’d be God.”

Castiel shook his shoulders, and then closed his eyes.  For the first time in—whenever—the sky darkened and lightning flashed.  But Alec wasn’t worried, he was awed.  Great wings unfurled from the angel’s back.   Large, majestic, strong bones arched high and wide.  And Alec saw why the fluttering he had always heard sounded painful and broken.  Castiel’s wings were nearly stripped of all their feathers.  A few weak, dead feathers clung to the branching bones in places, but they were mostly skeletal.  Alec could tell they had once been grandiose—but now they looked more like an albatross around Castiel’s neck.

Castiel held out his hands, and Alec innately understood what the angel wanted.  He waded over to him and took the angel’s hands in both of his.  Castiel squeezed his hands tight, and then slowly lowered himself beneath the water.  The wings followed after, slowly spreading out until they completely disappeared under the water.

Alec waited, holding Castiel’s hands above water.  He suspected if time still existed that they may have been in that river for days or weeks.  But in what felt like only a few moments later, Castiel surfaced slowly.  He used his hold on Alec’s hands to pull himself back up.  He was completely back on his feet before the wings emerged, heavy with water, from beneath the surface.

Alec had been expecting white wings—that was the culturally accepted aesthetic after all—but Castiel’s wings were black.  No, not black…blue.  But very, _very_ dark blue.  As Castiel tested their movement, a dark iridescence chased over the surface.  The angel flexed his wings straight up and Alec felt terrified.  But he didn’t feel unsafe.  He just understood the language used in the Bible regarding angels a little better now.

Still holding his hands, Castiel pumped his wings, spraying water and drying them.  Devoid of water the blue was easier to see.  They shone brilliantly in the light from the sky.  Castiel looked absolutely regal.  Beautiful.  Perf—

The feathers suddenly fluffed out like Clary’s hair had when the humidity was bad.  Castiel’s eyes went wide.  He glanced at his right wing, and then looked back at Alec with a glare when he couldn’t contain his snicker.

***

Castiel sat on the grass, vaguely aware that he wasn’t clothed.  He’d never much noticed clothes although it had seemed to matter to Dean.  He’d kept a trench coat once.  Castiel assumed he’d liked it, so he’d continued to wear one for the remainder of his time on earth.  Despite the rapidly changing fashions, he didn’t change his look.  The clothes only mattered because Dean had seemed to like them.

He sat with his feet pressed sole to sole and pulled up close to his body.  His hands held his toes.  One wing was folded into his body, the bottom bunched up on the grass.  The other was stretched out, but low to the ground.  Raziel’s Shadowhunter was combing his fingers through the feathers, pulling out loose ones and smoothing them down flat.  He was grateful to the human for helping him.  He was glad he had his wings back, but grooming them had always been one of his least favorite activities.

Alec had put his clothes back on first—humans were like that—but he had no qualms about touching him, even roughly as needed to clear a particularly stubborn tangle.  It felt good though.  Alec was in front of the wing now, sitting close to Castiel as he threaded his fingers through the feathers close to his arm.

They hadn’t spoken the entire time Alec had worked on the back of the wing, and not while he had worked his way over on the front.  Alec was quiet and spare with his words.  Castiel liked that about him, but he could sense he wanted to say something.

“What is it?” Castiel asked.

Alec glanced at him, his eyes flicking down to his lips before going back to his eyes—like Dean had always done.

“Why do you think we’re not shadows to each other?  Why do you think you could get to the river in my Garden?”

Castiel looked away.  He certainly didn’t know the answer to that.  More pointedly, he didn’t want to know.  His father had a hand in this, which meant it should be taken warily and with the expectation that he was going to have give something up that he really didn’t want to.

“I don’t know,” Castiel finally answered him.  “Thank you, for helping me.  It feels good.”

Alec blushed and looked away, but continued his work.  Castiel watched a bee buzz around a cluster of purple thistles.

“Have you seen any living animals here, Alec?”

The human glanced at him, curious about the reason for the question, but he answered.  “No.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes at the bee suspiciously.

With his wings back, it was easier to search for the Winchesters, but he was no more successful than he had been without them.  He returned to Alec’s Garden when he was tired of looking because he enjoyed the man’s company.  He also appreciated how good he was at grooming his wings.  Every time he returned, more fauna existed in the Garden.  Alec asked him about it once, but he had no answer for him.

Without time as a measure, it became hard to tell if he spent more time looking for his family or with Alec.  He would tell him about them—Dean.  Sam and Eileen.  Deanna, Maria, Robbie, and Padraic.  All of their many children.  Eventually Alec talked about his family—his parents, Isabelle, Max, Jace.  A whole host of names of friends who had come to feel like family.  Grudgingly he added names like Clary and Simon and Jocelyn and Luke—though Castiel suspected he cared about them a lot more than he was willing to admit.

They spoke many, many times before he ever heard the name Magnus.  The pain and regret and longing in Alec’s voice reminded him of what he felt when he thought of Dean.  So…he spoke more truthfully about Dean.  And sometimes silent, stoic tears escaped from the corners of Alec’s eyes.  Castiel never meant to make him sad; thinking of Dean made him happy.  But whenever he spoke of Dean, he just seemed to make Alec sad.

At some point in their new version of existence, night began to come to the garden.  The galaxies of all the universes shone brightly and mesmerizingly above them.  They would lie on the grass with Castiel’s wings spread wide around them.  Alec lay close to his side, Castiel’s arm draped protectively across his bare chest, and they watched the glittering miracle above them until the light returned.

After the first time they broke apart from a needy, cathartic kiss, Alec had trembled and asked if this would be their eternity.  Castiel had thought about it—with his wings he could probably take Alec out of the Garden, but where would they go?

After the first time they lay panting in each other’s arms, their slowly built love expressed in a base physical way (though thoroughly fun and enjoyable) Castiel had posed to Alec the question of leaving the Garden.

Alec’s fingers combed gently though Castiel’s ruffled feathers.  Castiel’s finger traced an angelic rune that sprawled across the delicate column of Alec’s throat.

“Where would we go?  What we do?” Alec asked.

“Wherever and whatever we want.”

“Could we…”

Castiel could see that Alec was conflicted about his thoughts.  He leaned down and kissed Castiel firmly, deeply, passionately.  Castiel accepted the feelings Alec was trying to convey.  He understood him in a way he had never really understood anyone else.

Alec pulled back and cupped Castiel’s cheek.  “Could we go looking for them?”

Castiel considered.  “Yes,” he said, covering Alec’s hand with his.  Then he smiled.  “I feel like bringing you along to meet Dean would result in the kind of awkward conversation he would expect of me.”

Alec smiled back.  “Magnus will probably just ask for a threesome.  Or a foursome if we find Dean first.”

Castiel’s smile widened and his wings ruffled on the grass.

“I think it’s time for your exile to come to an end, Alec.”

Alec leaned close again and kissed him sweetly.  “I think it’s time for both of us.”


End file.
